A succession chart can be full while its people are already committed elsewhere

Every lead role had a deputy beside it. I had taken that as a useful sign that our succession work was becoming more systematic. The chart covered twenty-four positions, but the names belonged to twelve people, each appearing twice. We had examined whether a colleague might cover an individual role without asking enough about the other responsibilities already attached to that colleague. The result looked complete because the page contained no empty boxes. It did not establish separate capacity the presentation appeared to promise.

Follow the person across the chart

In exhibition logistics, a movement plan can bring several experienced people into demand at once. Work may occur at different locations, and preparation can overlap with another assignment's completion. A capable deputy can therefore be a sensible choice for either of two responsibilities and still be unavailable for both together. That is not a defect in the person. It is a condition the enterprise needs to understand when it treats the two proposed relationships as part of its coverage account. The succession sheet had made that condition too easy to overlook.

The operating sponsor initially preferred a note saying that managers would resolve overlaps as they arose. I understood why. The named deputies were experienced, known to colleagues and familiar with the service. Replacing a trusted person on paper with somebody less prepared would not improve the actual response. But a note could not explain how often the same dependency recurred or what would happen when several demands arrived together. I wanted the review to preserve the value of those people without multiplying their capacity through the way their names were counted.

We began by following each person across the proposed roles and their current work. The question changed from whether a box contained a credible name to which commitments that name represented. Some combinations could be managed with time and a clear sequence. Others required an alternative because the responsibilities could conflict physically or practically. Operating leaders had to make those judgements. HR could organise the review and connect it with development, but we could not decide that somebody was technically ready merely because the revised chart needed another entry.

The exercise also changed my account of the earlier work. I had endorsed the complete-looking sheet. It would have been unfair to describe the finding as an operating failure while presenting the people function as the source of the correction. We had chosen a reporting format and a coverage measure that encouraged reviewers to complete each row independently. The resulting number was partly a product of that design. A more useful review needed to challenge the relationships between rows as well as the quality of each individual nomination.

A development possibility is not an available replacement

A succession discussion often contains several different propositions. Someone may have the potential to develop into a role. They may already be capable of a defined part of it. They may be ready for a temporary assignment under particular conditions. They may be interested in a permanent appointment. Those propositions are related, but they are not interchangeable. If the record compresses them into one word such as covered, the business loses the conditions that determine whether the arrangement can actually be used.

Availability adds another question. Even a well-prepared colleague can be committed to work that cannot simply stop. Moving that person may create a gap somewhere else. The review therefore needs an account of the consequence of using the proposed cover, not only a statement about the individual's capability. I do not regard that as an argument against internal succession. It is a way of making the internal option more credible. The company should know what it is choosing and what else must change when a deputy takes on a new responsibility.

Rohit approved₹42 lakh for the development and review programme. That funding paid for work on the people account;it did not purchase an instant replacement for every lead. Operating owners examined readiness and the responsibilities concerned, while HR supported development and kept the evidence visible. The revised account mapped sixteen distinct deputies to sixteen roles and left eight roles without the intended cover. We did not present the sixteen as a promise that all could replace incumbents simultaneously. Actual assignment still needed the current facts about availability and the work involved.

The change required more discussion than the original percentage had invited. Managers had to explain why a particular person was proposed, what remained to be learned and what would happen to that person's existing work. Some questions had no immediate answer. That made the review less comfortable, but also more useful for deciding where development effort should go. A development budget should respond to an understood need rather than serve as evidence that the need has already been resolved because money has been approved against it.

Let the gaps remain visible while they are being addressed

The board saw a smaller coverage number and eight explicit gaps. We could have described the funded programme prominently and allowed the unfinished positions to recede into an appendix. I wanted them in the main account because they represented the choices management still needed to make. A gap can be addressed through development, an external option, a different operating arrangement or another supported response. Until that response exists, the absence of a deputy should not disappear merely because the company has begun working on it.

There was a practical cost to this honesty. Managers could no longer assume that a familiar experienced colleague would absorb every exception. They had to consider the sequence and location of assignments more carefully and explain what could not yet be supported. The revised account did not establish that all future disruption would be handled successfully. It gave management and directors a better starting point for evaluating the current exposure. That is a narrower result than resilience secured, but it is a result the evidence can support.

For a board, the useful enquiry is not to nominate deputies itself. It is to ask what management means by coverage, how overlapping dependencies are examined and which material gaps remain. Directors can also ask whether the development plan has enough time and operating support to become real. Those questions leave appointment and deployment with the executive team while improving the quality of the assurance the board receives. A complete succession presentation should explain its limits as carefully as it displays its proposed names.

I now read a succession chart in two directions. I follow each role to the person proposed for it, and each person back through the commitments the enterprise has placed around them. The second reading is where our reassuring total began to change. Twelve people had not become twenty-four available replacements because we had written each name twice. Recognising that did not diminish their contribution. It required us to take their actual capacity seriously enough to build a plan around it.